The Number of Pitches Per Client

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Hi there!

Right off the bat: I apologize for being rather slow on sending this newsletter over the past month.

We were overseas in Thailand visiting my wife’s family (she grew up here in the states, but her parents are Thai). The plan was to send the newsletter from Thailand, but it ended up being more difficult than expected.

Sending this newsletter does take quite a bit of work, which has surprised me!

That got me thinking about one of the most surprising elements of independent consulting: the number of pitches it takes to win a client

That’s the focus of this week’s newsletter

What does “the number of pitches it takes to win a client” mean?

Long-time readers of the newsletter know I’m a huge fan of using platforms like Catalant to land clients.

These platforms do the hard work of finding clients for consulting, hammering out the MSA’s, and drafting contracts. Your sole responsibility is to convince the clients to hire you.

Pitches matter because these consulting projects are posted on a live marketplace. You need to search the marketplace and “pitch” on these projects to win one.

The number of pitches per client should therefore be intuitive. It’s the number of times you need to pitch in order to land a signed contract.

Why is this metric surprising?

The surprising fact about this metric is how high it is.

New independent consultants, especially those coming from big consulting experience at Big 3, Big 4, or similar are used to an entirely different world.

• They walk into their staffers office

• They get told what project to do, or are given a choice between a few projects

• They do that project

In independent consulting, you need to submit a lot of written pitches. New consultants can sometimes find this draining.

Here’s the flipside though: you have complete autonomy on what you chose to pitch on. You don’t only have a few projects to choose from…you have thousands.

What is considered good, and how can I improve to be “good?"

OK, so we’ve established that it is surprising just how many pitches you need to do. That implies it’s a quite-high number.

Let’s talk about the real numbers (and I have the data to back this up!)

A highly experienced independent consultant can land 5-10% of their pitches into clients.

That means you need to submit 10-20 pitches per new project! It’s surprisingly large when you view it through that lens.

A new independent consultant will likely land 2-5% of their pitches, depending on their past consulting experience.

So, 20-50 pitches between projects.

This is intimidating and a lot of new independents quit after 10-20 pitches.

Stick with it. You can make a couple hundred grand a year with better hours than traditional consulting.

What would be most helpful to read about next week?

Let me know what would be most helpful for you :)

How can I help?

I’ve helped as many people get started as I can, and both of the two people I coached exceeded, or are on pace to exceed, $500K in their first year.

If there is any questions you have or roadblocks you’re running into, please feel free to email me. I’ll help however I can!

If you reply to this email, it will come directly to me & I’ll respond as quickly as possible.